My Problems with Virgin Mobile and the ZTE AWE!

Paul1 Reply

Virgin Mobile likes to mislead people!

When I was researching this phone, I saw this on their website and thought well it looks to be promising and that I could pay the extra 15$ and be able to teether my phone to my laptop whenever I needed to.  Even though, I am simply am enjoying this new phone of mine.   The idea that they made me believe that I could easily without effort pay them to allow me to teether my phone is simply absurd.   I shouldn’t have to circumvent the new security feature in Android 4.1.2 which  Google decided to break tethering and prevent people from using those so called teether apps.   I have yet to find one that will work.

Calling all Geeks!

I’m going to have to probably root the phone and install a Cyanogen mod on it to be able to use the tethering option on the phone.   I would however like to keep it the way it is.   Rooting the AWE be to much trouble for me right now.   Since I am mainly using a Chrome Book and have yet to install a Linux Distro to the machine.   I’d have to do that first before I could even root the device and you know how that is!

Does Anyone know of an app that will do that without having to break the warranty of the phone as Virgin Mobile told me over the phone?   I would break the warranty if I rooted the phone.   LOL That was a laugh.   If you know of an app in the Google App store please leave a comment and help everyone out who might have the same problem!   

Best Security Apps for your iPhone (Guest Post)

Paul

iPhone 4's Retina Display v.s. iPhone 3G

Security has always been an important concern for smartphones. With these gadgets coming with features that enable us to easily access our e-mail, bank accounts and many other private features, it is mandatory that you have security features that keep your personal information from falling into the wrong hands. There are a few apps that help you to prevent strangers or malicious software from accessing your phone. Here is a list of some useful apps for the iPhone.

 

Kryptos:

Kryptos is one of the few apps designed to provide secured VoIP. If you are worried that someone is spying your phone conversations done through Internet, this app is the best solution you can get. It is already being successfully used by thousands of people whose professions demand that they need to maintain their phone conversations secret. Its functionality is very simple; It encrypts the phone signals using the Advanced Encryption Standard which is military grade and impossible to decrypt. It is mandatory that both the people who are making the call should have the Kryptos installed in their phones. You need to pay ten dollars a month to use this app.


 

Find My iPhone:

Find My iPhone is the security app that is installed on most iPhones. In case you forget your phone or it gets stolen, this app helps you track it down. The iPhone comes with pre-installed GPS-assisted location tracking features which are used by this app. You can track your phone from any Apple device or Apple’s website. Tech-savvy thieves can disable it, but if you track it quickly, you can find your iPhone. This app comes for free and is created by Apple itself.

Norton Snap:

These days, we are finding QR codes on almost everything – from business cards to movie posters. a QR code is a multi-dimensional bar code series which has to be scanned by your phone’s camera. Now, it immediately takes you to a web link – as a QR code is a URL in encrypted form. Here, you are very vulnerable as a hacker can easily put a fake QR code such that it points to a malicious website. In this way, the private information in your phone can be stolen. Norton Snap saves you from such dangers. It reviews the URL that the QR code points to and pops up a warning message if it a harmful link. 

Foscam Surveillance Pro:

Do you have to monitor you house live while you are away? All you need to have is an IP camera, an internet connection and the Foscam Surveillance Pro app. All the activity at your home can be seen on your iPhone’s screen. If your camera has pan or tilt feature, you can move it by controlling it with a virtual joystick from the screen of your iPhone. Using a Foscam made IP camera brings you many more additional features.


Some Internet service providers offer good levels of security other than that just providing you the broadband service. I came to know about this when I called the

 

Author Bio:

Melody Cleo is a passionate blogger from Manchester, UK. In is free time, she writes articles on various topics such as technology, gadgets, travel…etc. As of now she is focusing on Sky Contact Number, which provides information regarding broadband services, radio services and television services.

How to Secure your Chromebook from threats!

Paul

Acer Chromebook C7

The Journey So far!

When I first started this journey to find a way to use my chrome book to blog and keep it safe, I just didn’t know how hard it was to switch from Windows or even the Linux system to this!   It wasn’t as if I had any choice in the matter.   It was in my price range, under 300$ and thus I decided I was going to overcome some of the obstacles of the OS.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy it but I am saying you need to know what your getting into before you try some of these things.

What you need to do!

If it isn’t obvious yet it soon will be is to make sure you have HTTPS Everywhere installed and running.   You don’t have much options when it comes to a VPN service but that will be changing soon because I have a great tutorial coming down the pipe from VPN4ALL.   I’ve have been talking to them and urging them to come up with a way to use their service with Chromebook.   I have found a temporary service for the time but I feel I should keep with my sponsors as long as possible.   I will also be publishing the tutorial about the other VPN services that work with Chrome OS in a few days.  As you can see I have been really busy and researching all this!   

Password Management!

I have told you in the past, I just love Lastpass and you should be installing a password manager that suites you and here are a few that you can install:

Some of you probably are wondering why I think this is important.   If a hacker got a hold of yoru account because your password was rather weak then you will have lost your chance to keep that account from being compromised.   So when your creating passwords it should not be memorable, and should have letters, numbers, and symbols and that is where these guys come in.   They all create unique passwords that will keep your account safe and they will also encrypt those passwords in a database.

These are just a few good apps to secure your Chrome OS and keep the bad guys from getting into your online identies and also snooping on your privacy.   Each person should worry about stuff like this but I am sure they have no clue.   At least this will help you start protecting your stuff and who you are online!

 

Reviewing the Acer Chromebook C710-2856

Paul

The New and Old!

As you know my Acer Aspire with Windows 7 was falling apart and I had to figure out a way to keep blogging without breaking the bank.   I happen to fin this nice little system for under 250$ and with the amount of positive reports from people around the globe about this laptop.  I figured I have to try it out myself.  As you know I simply love to buy products from Acer because I believe in them so much.   Every time I buy something from them, they just seem to last and thus I couldn’t resist trying this little Chromebook out.   I also thought this might be something that could be given as a gift to other people since Christmas time is almost upon us.   I just didn’t realize what I was getting myself into with this laptop.   

Specifications

Let’s start off by detailing to you what the specifications are for this Chromebook:

Chromebook With Chome OS:

  • Screen Size: 11.6”
  • Screen Resolution: 1366 x 768
  • Processor Type: Intel
  • Processor Model: Celeron 847
  • Processor Speed: 1.1GHz (Dual core)

Display:

  • Screen Size 11.6’
  • Screen Mode HD
  • Screen Resolution 1366 x 768

Network:

  • IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n (With Fast Ethernet Technology)

USB:

  • 3 USB 2.0

Comes with no optical drives, so no DVD’s or CD can be played with this device.   I am sure someone was going to ask this so I figured it was time to point that out!  Now I can tell you every detail about the specifications but it really doesn’t need to be discussed.  

Pros and Con’s

I am sure some of you are think there isn’t really anything positive that I could say about this laptop but you’d be wrong.   I started using this laptop last month for 3 weeks now and thought it was high time we at least do a review of this and try to talk about my experience.   

Now let’s get to the juicy parts of this article.   Would I recommend this to everyone, I would say NO.  If your doing photo editing or something that requires high processing editing then you might as well go look somewhere else.   The good part of this Acer Laptop is quite obvious but can be oblivious to others.  You can Stream movies and Shows and watch them on the laptop.   Google did a good job of this.   Just like Chromecast, you can stream them from your laptop to the big screen if you want.   

Processing Speed

The speed of the laptop when used with the Chrome OS is very different compared to my old laptop but then again, I am sure it was getting sluggish and probably needed a good clean refresh of the system.  I wasn’t how well I would like this system but I am not disappointed at all with what I expected to be doing with it.   I wasn’t going to be doing much other than blogging, surfing the net, and streaming movies and shows using HULU, CBS, and Netflix.  Let’s not forget about Pandora, which also worked perfectly for my needs.  It works perfectly on this Acer Chromebook.   I had no problems watching shows and movies from all those providers and many more.   

Hard Drive

If your planning on putting a lot of music files and documents on this laptop, think again.   You can however use USB drives to increase it to what ever size you may need but that will impact your time of the laptop if you don’t have it plugged in then you are are going to be using batter power to power the USB HDD.   It comes with a 16 gb Solid State Drive and it is really quite.   You can increase the space to 48 Gb’s by adding a 32 Gb SD card which is helpful for some.  

Screen

Most videos I streamed worked flawlessly and were quite nice to watch on the 11.6’ display.   They say it is High Definition and I believe it is.  I have had no problem surfing the web and checking out other web sites to see if there would be any problem with viewing them on a smaller screen and it was nice and no problems.

Battery

The battery power in this was quite amazing.   It at times has lasted me more than 5 hours on one charge an that has been a record for me.   The size and power alone is something that is definitely big plus to me because I don’t always need to keep it plugged in.   Very portable and can be taken to McDonald’s or any Wifi Hotspot.   I will be discussing this in detail later, and how to setup a VPN on a Chromebook! 🙂  So stay tuned!

Keyboard and Touchpad

Now to tell you I had a learning curve for the touch pad would be understand statement.   You have to understand that it has different gestures for double clicking and right and left clicking.   So when you first start using this laptop you will need to be prepared to go to the Chrome Book Help section to help you out and figure out all those new gestures.  The keyboard is like most other laptops and does a superb job at letting me type.  It all worked out in the end with me because it worked just well for all my needs.

If I haven’t changed your mind and you would like to try this laptop out for yourself you have a few options available to you and here they are:

 

Most of the time almost everyone has this version of Chromebook because it is the cheapest there is.   It is quite responsive and I have no qualms with this laptop.   I even like the size more easier to carry around and not be so bulky.   

*Those nasty disclaimers* Some of the links in the site are for use to help keep my website going and thus any Amazon links are undoubtedly affiliated with my site.

Electric Cars Deliver More Value for Money

Paul

Electric cars are great for the environment but somewhat less friendly on the wallet. Because of their battery packs, electric cars tend to cost between $8,000 and $15,000 more than comparable gasoline-powered sedans before federal tax and state clean tax credits, as The Washington Post reports. Through researching new vehicles, you’ll find the price differential may finally be narrowing, if the current crop of electric vehicles is any indication. Here in no particular order are some of the best electric cars for your money:

2013 Ford Focus Electric: Value for Money

Photo by Mariordo via Wikimedia Commons

With a base price of $39,200, according to U.S. News and Rankings, the electric version of Ford’s popular sedan is not exactly inexpensive. But it does offer considerable value for the money. Perhaps not too surprisingly, a lot of the car’s affordability stems from its energy efficiency. According to Ford, the car delivers a substantial 110 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe) in city driving conditions and 99 MPGe on the highway. The Focus EV comes equipped with a 6.6-kilowatt onboard charger that adds about 20 miles of additional driving capacity for each hour that the car is charged. Even though the Focus EV has an all-electric train, the car is no wimp. Its 107-kilowatt magnetic motor engine delivers a decent 143 horsepower of thrust and 184 foot-pounds of torque. The car has a top speed of 84 miles per hour and goes from zero to 60 in 9.2 seconds.

Mitsubishi i-MiEV: Deceptively Large

Photo by David Villarreal Fernandez via Wikimedia Commons

Mitsubishi’s all-electric, egg-shaped oddity has the distinction of being rated the most fuel-efficient car in the country by the Environmental Protection Agency. The 2012 model of the vehicle delivers 126 MPGe in city driving and 99 miles for highway driving, according to JD Power. It can go up to 62 miles on a full battery and can be charged in less than 7 hours with a 240-volt recharger. The i-MiEV’s rear-mounted 49-killowatt magnetic motor engine delivers a modest 48 horsepower of thrust, but that’s enough to push the car up to a maximum speed of 81 miles per hour. The i-MiEV, which stands for Mitsubishi innovative Electric Vehicle, looks almost cartoonishly small from the outside but has a surprisingly large interior capable of seating four adults comfortably. With a starting price tag of less than $30K, the i-MiEV is one of the least expensive electric vehicles currently available.

2013 Chevy Volt: Hybrid Design

Photo by Mariordo via Wikimedia Commons

The Chevy Volt is not strictly an all-electric vehicle but rather a hybrid that runs on both gasoline and electricity. With a suggested retail price of more than $39,000, the Volt is in the same price class as the Ford Focus EV, but that’s where most of the comparisons end. As a hybrid vehicle, the Volt travels a lot longer on a full-charge than all-electric options do. The Volt can go 300 miles on a full battery and a full tank of gas, which is well more than double the distance offered by other electric vehicles like the Focus EV. The Volt takes about 10 hours to charge using an ordinary household outlet and qualifies for all federal and state tax credits for green vehicles.

Nissan Leaf: Popular Choice

Photo by Tennen-Gas via Wikimedia Commons

No lineup of affordable electric vehicles is complete without the Nissan Leaf. The Leaf was the first truly affordable zero-emissions electric vehicle. It continues to be a popular choice among those making the switch to green technology. The car has a driving range of between 60 miles to 95 miles on a fully-charged battery and takes about 10 hours to charge at a standard residential power outlet. The car’s 24-kilowatt lithium ion battery pack delivers 107 horsepower and 187 foot-pounds of torque, according to Nissan’s website, making it fairly zippy for an electric vehicle. The car goes from zero to 60 in about 9 seconds and has a respectable maximum speed of 90 miles per hour. Pricing for the Leaf starts at just over $36,000, putting it on par with most other electric vehicles.

Stacy Simpson

Stacy is working toward her masters in urban sustainability. When grad school isn’t ruling her life, she likes to blog about local green initiatives.